M J Antony: Questions left in limbo

OUT OF COURT

The Supreme Court is reluctant to solve the problem of competing powers of various forums set up under new laws.

There are complex questions of law which one bench of the Supreme Court refers to a larger bench only to be then forgotten, like the review of property rights in the Constitution. There are others which the court says should wait for answers on a better occasion, in an apt case. Now there is another set of cases which are remitted to the courts or tribunals below though the issues reach the Supreme Court so often.

The forum for filing a complaint regarding electricity distribution is one such. Last year, in Haryana Electricity Board vs Mam Chand, the Supreme Court found that the definition of consumer in such cases requires consideration by the consumer courts. "Disputes of this nature are repeatedly arising before the Supreme Court. At this stage, we do not wish to express any opinion," the judgement said while remitting the matter to the state consumer commission.

A few days ago, the Supreme Court found that the same question has come back to its doorstep, in Accounts Officer, Jharkhand State Electricity Board vs Anwar Ali. However, the court did not decide the issue finally; it again passed the job to the National Consumer Commission. Most probably, the issue in question is before several other consumer forums as well and they might reach the apex court in a short while. The Supreme Court will still be without a definite interpretation on this point.

The problem is the conflict or competing powers of various forums set up under the new laws. In this case, the Electricity Act of 2003 has set up a machinery to deal with consumer complaints. At the same time, the Consumer Protection Act also overlaps certain areas of redressal of complaints. Such uncertainty prevails in other fields covering service providers like insurance, railways, post and telegraph. With the setting up of more regulatory bodies and the trend towards tribunalisation, the problem is bound to rise.

The Consumer Act defines goods and services, consumer, deficiency in service and a host of other terms. A person aggrieved by wrong billing or allegation of tampering with the meter is apt to go to the consumer forum. On the other hand, the electricity authorities argue that the Electricity Act has excluded the jurisdiction of the civil courts as it has set up its own machinery to deal with complaints. Moreover, assessment of the duty for unauthorised use of electricity, tampering of meters and calibration of electric current are matters of technical nature which cannot be decided by the consumer forums.

In both cases, the Supreme Court agreed that the contentions required deeper consideration by the consumer commissions. However, instead of settling the issues at the apex level, the court asked the consumer forums to decide the issues. These cases referred to disputes from two states only. There might be similar cases in other states too, as the court itself noted. The issue is thus allowed to float, as it were.

Aggrieved persons seem to lack confidence in the machinery set up under various new statutes as they are manned by personnel employed by the service providers themselves. The railway claims tribunal is one such. There are numerous cases of torts involving 'untoward incident' as defined in the Railways Act. The railway authorities most often resist the claim by devious arguments. Then the appeals go to the high courts which give a liberal interpretation in favour of the victims who lost their lives or limbs.

The Post Office Act and the Carriers Act are some other instances where the law is heavily loaded against the aggrieved. Section 6 of the Post Office Act virtually exempts the authorities from any liability for loss, misdelivery, delay or damage of any postal article in the course of transmission. A few years ago, a batch of cases against the negligence of Speed Post was decided by the National Consumer Commission (Varun Garg vs Asst Post Master). A person who lost a Rs 5 lakh draft in Speed Post got Rs 20,000 as damages, an LL B candidate who could not sit for the exam due to postal mix-up got Rs 30, the charge he paid for Speed Post. The compensation under the Carriers Act is also meagre. The National Consumer Commission has been reluctant to award higher damages.

With the law-makers leaving so many loose ends, and the courts reluctant to give definitive answers to recurrent questions, persons adversely affected by the deficiency in service have to use all perseverance they can command to get justice. The complaint in the Haryana electricity case arose in 1994. In the Jharkhand case, the disconnection was ordered in 2000. This is legal darkness in economic noon.